Fox Corner,
Kingsport,
Feb. 1926
John,
The newest little brown boy is here. He ambushed us the other evening, right after dinner. Actually, that's the wrong word. Mara knew exactly what was happening. She went to clear the table and put a hand to her back, instead.
'You'd better wash, tonight,' she said to Susan. 'The baby's coming now.'
It was much easier than the Toronto Trial By Fire back in November – significantly easier. Faith and Judith Carlisle made commendable assistants, and in this, as in many previous endeavours, Mara and I make an excellent team. It turns out the tendency to nearly kill one's mother with difficult labour is not hereditary, which gratifies this grandfather exceedingly. I couldn't have done that again. Once with Anne was enough.
Not that this did anything to relax Shirley. Would you believe that before this I'd never seen him anxious about anything? That cannot be right, and yet I know it is. Rilla was mortified to be seen carrying a cake, and Nan got it into her head that she was adopted, but Shirley has no equivalent story – and I know so little of all their wars.
Jem, by contrast, was obviously delighted to see the shoe on the other foot, and had a hard time not saying I told you so. Jem makes a terrible anxious incipient-father, and Shirley knows it. Unlike Jem, Shirley was only too happy to get out of the way; He took an emergency call-out to a local farm on the proviso Judith ring any news over immediately.
She did, and it was all anyone could do to get a look at the baby after Susan took him hostage and his good points to anyone who would listen. These ranged from ears, to stature, to the curl of his toes. She has only willingly yielded him up to his mother, and wouldn't have done that if it hadn't been strictly necessary.
The baby, in the interests of thoroughness, is named Iain Alexander, which is so normal and reasonable as to leave me faintly stunned. I started to think normalcy in names was out of fashion. He's as brown as Shirley, from thatch of hair, to eyes, to that same tanned skin, and Susan is devoted to him. The Magi never adored the Christ so worshipfully.
This hasn't prevented her running an unfamiliar kitchen with a 7lbs infant on her arm. She was so entrenched that Anne and I doubted she would ever leave. An understandable sentiment, but also likely to vex the house's inhabitants. Mara's not the type to cede control of her home to other people, regardless of circumstances. Judith Carlisle has tried. There is more casserole and salted herring in this house than the good Lord ever intended. I'm convinced.
So, yesterday, while the young people foregathered worshipfully around the crib, Anne and I started listing everything we would miss if Susan didn't return to Ingleside. You'd better believe company was top of the list. Whatever else she is, Susan is never dull, and she's always excellent value for teasing, whatever Anne says.
Susan was horrified. She wouldn't dream of leaving Mrs. Dr. Dear to run Ingleside all on her own.
It got me an unexpected hug from Shirley later. He's not the demonstrative type with family, and the concession surprised me. Actually, that's unfair. He is demonstrative – especially with Mara. He isn't with me.
So, I was surprised when he said as we t ramped through the woods, just us two, 'I'm glad Susan's where you can keep an eye on her, Dad.'
We were heading to one of his veterinary jobs on Route 31, where Kingsport becomes Waterford, and it struck me how rare conversations like these are between us. So much so, I couldn't speak. I reached for words I didn't have, and inhaled crisp air instead. It was sharp with thawing mud and mouldering greenery, and reminded me of my father. Once, he and I tramped through a different woods and it was enough when I said of course I'd look after Mum, whatever happened, wherever work took me. This felt the same. Such a natural thing, to try to justify the doing of it was almost redundant.
Finally, because I had to say something, I said, 'Jem would do the same. Any doctor would.'
Shirley shook his head and said, 'Mother Susan would never listen to little Jem; She will to you.'
Then we reached our destination, and I watched Shirley ministering to a particularly recalcitrant and colicky horse, and thought, not for the first time, how like my Dad he was. I watched him soothing and shushing and feeling the bones of skirmishing forelegs, and only then, in that stall perfumed by residual silage, hay, and horse-muskiness did I realise the tribute to Dad in little Iain's name; I forgot it was the Scotch for John.
On the walk back, Shirley said, 'You'll tell me if Mother Susan's health changes?'
It wasn't a question. It made me wonder, suddenly, if Anne and I were right taking Susan home with us. I guess I asked, because Shirley laughed, a hearty sound like a plucked cello, and said, 'Righter than right. The only reason she and Mara haven't killed each other over the kitchen yet is because you haven't stayed long enough.'
He had the women so to rights that I laughed, too. The wind carried the sound over the murky, muddy fields like a trumpet blast, and I risked putting an arm around Shirley.
I said, thinking of Iain, 'You've made Susan very happy, you know,' and there was more laughter.
'You and Mum too, I hope,' he said.
We returned to Fox Corner with the four o'clock twilight falling fast. Someone - Susan? - had put the kettle on, and the malty smell of Assam tea floating out the open window. It mingled with the freshness of the snow and the cinnamon-rich Chelsea buns.
'Just in time,' said Anne to us through the window, where she stood waving us in. Drinking in the outside too, I shouldn't wonder – Anne is always half-dryad, even in winter. It's where Nan's girls get it from.
We came in out of the cold, and Susan clucked, and Shirley deftly got the baby away from her in a gesture that defied the rest of us. Mara was up and about. I make it too soon, but Faith has a theory that women shouldn't stay in bed after a lying-in because it breeds infection. I'm beginning, albeit slowly, to see her point. She sees much less puerperal fever than I do. The Carlisles were visiting, and so were Jem and family. There was a murder under investigation, and it didn't matter how often Susan invoked the wee ones, none of our children paid her the least mind. Their children paid even less.
I'll be sorry to leave, despite what I said to Susan. There's been heart in this visit, and I'm glad. If I didn't see nearly enough of little Christopher, if Teddy and Kitty monopolised Helen fiercely, I can't complain. It's good to see they are established in their families as my own children were at Ingleside. Besides, I promised Jo to make the pilgrimage to Miss Mattie's christening. I wouldn't miss it for worlds.
We'll be home soon, but until then, love ever,
Gil
Martyrs' Manse,
Kingsport,
March, 1926
Gil,
Lovely to see you again. Hetta Gordon was delighted since, as you will be unsurprised to hear, it is probably one of the last occasions she will bless us with. She hasn't been at all well these last few months, and is declining rapidly. I fear the next occasion to call us to St. Andrew's, Bolingbroke, will be her funeral. But whatever's wrong with her body, Hetta Gordon's still sharp as the proverbial tack. I was barely through Mount Holly's famously polished doors, when that venerable woman took me aside and walked me through the arrangements for her will. She wants to avoid confusion. She worries, I think, that her sense of pomp and circumstance will die with her, and certainly Phil never shared it. But Ruthie and Mark, who live at Mount Holly with Hetta – and who will, I suspect, inherit it– share her tastes. They'll give Hetta her due, and they'll keep the old Gordon ways alive.
The house is flatter and duller, now the guests have left. It seems ages rather than months until Easter, when we see the children next.
Be well, do good work, and keep in touch,
Jo
Martyrs' Manse,
Kingsport,
March, 1926
John,
It's our turn for a snowy Lent, and just in time for the Martyrs' heating to fail. So far, my collaboration with Simon Hazelhurst and Martin Gibson to mend it hasn't succeeded. It hisses noisily, and gives the impression that we on Patterson St. possess a water-feature. We do not, and it's excessively worrisome. But we lack an engineer, forget the money to summon one. What with the snow, it's getting so that people can see their breath during the hymns – never a good sign. My sermons are much shorter these days, with the express design of getting people home and warm. Not very holy, I'm afraid, but I see no sense in making my congregants ill with prayerfulness. It's one thing to worship the Lord in the beauty of Holiness; Quite another to worship him while turning white and red and blue with cold like a union jack.
Shirley promised to look at the radiators, though he and I aren't sure what this will avail besides a new pair of eyes on the problem. Jem promised ditto. Poor Faith is busier than ever tending the influx of colds and fevers brought on by the bad weather and worse heating. Nothing, she says, is harder on the body as the shift from cold to mild to cold weather again. As Phil and I have only lately vanquished the lurgy ourselves, I believe her.
Christopher and Helen, in the improbable way children have, dodged the lot and remain in the rudest of health. They are even delighting in the late gift of snow, though I remain grateful it's nothing on the scale of what you described up at Crow Lake last season. I often spot them running wild through the woods, with God Tuesday in pursuit and Teddy half a league behind them.
Iain also escaped flu, but succumbed to what Faith makes a rather nasty ear-infection, leaving all at Fox Corner more sleep-deprived than normal. Since she seems to be treating it effectively, and Judith Carlisle has forcibly seized Mara's kitchen for the foreseeable, Phil and I haven't dared offer more than moral support.
Are you still set on a sunrise service for Easter? If so, have the secretariat been won round to the cause? If you pull it off, I may try the same here next year.
Be well, do good work, and keep in touch,
Jo